The two hundred sixty-third "cheder" in the palace of Hayom Yom.
Tuesday, 16 Menachem Av, 5703.
Shiurim: Chumash, Eikev, third aliyah, with the commentary of Rashi.
Tehillim: on the 16th of the month, one recites from chapter 79 through chapter 82 inclusive.
Tanya: On this day we continue with the fifth letter in Iggeret HaKodesh. The daily portion begins on page 214 with the word "Ach," and concludes on page 108 with the words "bi-12 ayin-shin."
The passage is a quote from a sichah delivered by the Rebbe Rayatz on the last day of Pesach 5700. There he speaks, as the opening line puts it, of "the Baal Shem Tov's travels at the beginning of his revelation". The Baal Shem Tov, at the beginning of his revelation, as detailed in the sichah, would travel to many places — to large cities, to small towns, to various settlements, to villages and to inns.
For what purpose did he travel? He says that "there were three matters" for whose sake the Baal Shem Tov traveled to all sorts of places. The first — "pidyon shvuyim" (redeeming captives). What was this about? There were many residents who lived in those settlements, some of whom rented taverns from the gentiles and did not have the means to pay the rent, and the gentile estate owners would take them as hostages until someone would bring the money. They were like captives in the hands of the owners of the places from whom they had rented, and the Baal Shem Tov would travel to redeem them — to free the Jews, to pay the money, and to release them. That is one purpose.
The second goal — "strengthening Torah and fear of Heaven"; to strengthen Torah and the fear of Heaven, with love of a fellow Jew, among all the people one meets. And the third matter — "the revelation of the innermost dimension of Torah," to reveal to those immersed in Torah the innermost dimension of the Torah.
In the talk of the Rebbe Rayatz there is a lengthy discussion, and I will bring here something that will help in understanding what follows. Seemingly, in that era the practice was that every ben Torah who wished to study Torah would travel on his own to the rosh yeshivah; there was no situation in which the rosh yeshivah would go around the towns in order to bring people to study Torah. The yeshivah was in a fixed place, and the rosh yeshivah sat in a fixed place, and whoever wished to study would travel on his own to the yeshivah. The Baal Shem Tov, by contrast, traveled to spread the inner dimension of the Torah in every place.
The Baal Shem Tov's disciples asked him: "Rebbe, why do you travel about yourself? Why don't you wait for people to come to you, and whoever wishes to learn will come?" And the Baal Shem Tov did not answer them. The next generation arrived, the generation of the Maggid, and the disciples asked the Maggid as well why the Baal Shem Tov traveled and did not wait for people to come to him — and he, too, did not answer them.
The first to answer this was the Alter Rebbe. In the teaching, the Rebbe brings the answer of the Mitteler Rebbe, but the answer of the Alter Rebbe he does not bring here (and it appears in the sichah of 5696). The Alter Rebbe said: there is "nigleh d'Torah" and there is "pnimiyus haTorah"; the "galya" goes to the "galya" — the revealed part of the Jew goes to nigleh — but pnimiyus haTorah must come from the innermost part of the soul. The pnimiyus does not go to the pnimiyus; the pnimiyus must be revealed, since it is hidden. Therefore the Baal Shem Tov went in order to awaken the pnimiyus of the Jew, so that he would want to study pnimiyus haTorah. This is what the Alter Rebbe explained.
The Mitteler Rebbe explained a different reason, which is what we see here in the daily teaching. "The Mitteler Rebbe would explain thereby" why the Baal Shem Tov himself traveled to all the places and did not wait for people to come to him: "The revealed part of Torah is called water, and to water one goes on one's own" — a thirsty person goes to the water on his own; and since the revealed part of Torah is called "water," there is no need to go to a person in order to bring him the revealed teachings; rather, he will come on his own.
However, "the inner dimension of Torah is called fire, and fire evokes awe," and it is the nature of fire that people fear it, lest it burn them, and therefore people do not run toward fire but rather flee from it; and so too regarding the inner dimension of Torah, people do not run toward it but, as it were, flee from it. "Therefore the mashpia must go to the mekabel" with the inner dimension of Torah, "and tell him that he need not be afraid." And why need he not be afraid — is this not fire? "Because 'Hashem your God is a consuming fire.'"
The meaning is as follows: indeed, there is a fire here, a consuming fire, but it is a fire of "Hashem your G-d," a fire of the Holy One, blessed be He, who is the ultimate good, and therefore there is nothing to fear. This is not a fire that harms; it takes away the materiality and the not-good matters, and on the contrary — it connects and warms the person. Therefore there is no need to be apprehensive. This is the reason, the Mitteler Rebbe explained, that the Baal Shem Tov would travel himself and not wait for people to come to him.